Super Speedy Search Smarts

Searching through a large e-mail inbox file in an application like Microsoft Outlook, or searching for files scattered across your hard drive can consume lots of time. If you want to perform these tasks much more efficiently, and you’re on a Windows PC, try out Copernic Desktop Search Version 2. The application is a free download, and you will be wowed by the performance increases it brings. Even when searching a huge e-mail inbox, for example, your search will typically be done in less than a second.



The latest version of Copernic Desktop Search adds a lot of features, including a lighter interface and automatic suggestion of alternatives for misspellings during queries. On the upper left of the application there is a search field, and searches begin to execute as soon as you finish typing them. When searching e-mail archives, the results come back conveniently grouped in sections such as Today, Yesterday, Two Weeks Ago, etc.

Copernic Desktop Search is particularly good at searching your whole hard drive for files of the same type. For example, if you keep .JPG images in many directories, the application will scour all of them in a flash and deliver organized results. It’s also very good at ferreting out your contacts, especially if some of your contacts are organized in address books, but lots of others are not.

Atop the screen in the application, you’ll see categories such as E-mails, Files, Music, Pictures, and more. You can choose to do an All search, or if you have some idea of where your desired result resides, and you want the fastest possible results, you can search only within one category.

There are lots of nice touches in the application. For example, when searching for images, you can tell Copernic to skip images smaller than a specified size, and you can save recurring searches in a My Searches area. I know of few freely downloadable applications that have as much of a wow factor as this one. If you haven’t tried it, definitely do.

What are your favorite search shortcuts?

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